[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

[Platt]
Having a few so-called conservative friends who agree with you proves  nothing.
I have many liberal friends who believe that fears of  environmental disaster
are complete bull. Your words remind me of  someone trying to defend her racist
bias by saying, "Some of my best friends are black."

[Arlo]
We are not talking about "the environmental disaster". We are talking about
real, local, environmental issues; air, water and land quality. It is not an
Absolute Devastation versus No Problem Whatsoever. If you read my post, you'd
see that. If you could anything more than parrot Party Lines, you'd see that.
(What?! Another party-based, absolute dichotomy?! Why I am so shocked!)

But, I'm game. Okay. So. We have streams nearby that are too polluted to eat the
fish in them. What is the "conservative" way to handle this? The air quality in
my town is going down, more cars, hazier and less clean air. What is the
"conservative" way to handle this? Garbage washes up on the Jersey beaches
everyday. What is the "conservative" way to handle this? Going on everything
you say so far, the response to them all would be deny there is any issue at
all, at least until Limbaugh tells me its okay to see one.

Luckily, the conservatives and liberals I know here both are concerned with the
problem, and are more interested in solving it than being blindly obedient to
Party Dogma. Since it is, after all, not a liberal-conservative issue, except
to the Jesters. But then again, to the Jester, everything is. It's axiom 1a and
1b.

[Arlo quotes Pirsig]
"Phædrus remembered a line from Thoreau: "You never gain something but that you
lose something." And now he began to see for the first time the unbelievable
magnitude of what man, when he gained power to understand and rule the world in
terms of dialectic truths, had lost. He had built empires of scientific
capability to **manipulate the phenomena of nature into enormous manifestations
of his own dreams of power and wealth** (mining)...but for this he had
exchanged an empire of understanding of equal magnitude: an **understanding of
what it is to be a part of the world** (gardening), and not an enemy of it."

[Platt]
I read the passage three times and failed to detect one mention of  mines or
mining. You have a bizzare way of reading into Pirsig's work what you want to
find there.

[Arlo]
See above. "Miners" see the world as a commodity to be exploited for power and
wealth. "Gardeners" see the world as something they are part of and care for. 

[Platt]
Glad you admit that the caricuture of conservatives you set up is "insipid" and
"foolish."

[Arlo]
Oh, Platt. No one demonstrates the caricature of conservatives better than you.
The fact that the rubric I laid out explains and predicts every single thing
you've said is just evidence of that.